Pinball games are often found together in arcades, restaurants, bars, and other amusement establishments. Generally speaking, a pinball game includes a playfield that supports a rolling ball and is mounted in a generally horizontally disposed cabinet. The playfield is usually tilted or inclined at a slight angle to cause the ball to roll toward the end or bottom of the playfield. The player uses flippers at the bottom of the playfield to propel the ball back into the playfield area. A transparent structure is placed over the playfield to limit the player's interaction with the ball to only the flippers. A display for pinball games usually consists of an alphanumeric display for showing the score of one or more players. This display is usually mounted in a backbox which is mounted above the cabinet and generally at an end opposite the player position. The display may utilize electromechanical alphanumeric display elements or electrical or electronic illuminated display elements such as neon tubes or LEDs or the like. In some cases, the so-called dot matrix display have been used to generate alphanumeric displays, and other somewhat limited visual displays.
Designers of pinball games strive to constantly provide innovations to continue to attract interest, both for attracting new players and for retaining the interest of present players. While appealing new input and output features for pinball games assists in attracting new players and retaining the existing players, these new features are typically introduced to the market in the form of an entirely new pinball machine. In other words, an arcade owner has to purchase the new machine to place these new player-appeal features into his or her arcade. This introduction process usually entails removing an old machine that is out of favor and replacing it with the new machine. Thus, the cost to the arcade owner not only includes the cost of the new machine, but the costs associated with removing the old machine such as transportation, advertising it for resale, etc. In some instances, arcade owners have been provided with conversion kits that alter the physical features of an existing pinball machine. These kits may include new input/output elements on the playfield or an entirely new playfield and different artwork for the pinball machine. However, pinball machines were not designed for retrofitting which makes the conversion process difficult. And, the new pinball game is limited by the electronic capabilities that were present in the existing machine structure.
The assignee of the present application has developed a novel type of pinball machine wherein a video image is projected onto the glass covering the playfield and is reflected therefrom for viewing by the player. In this novel pinball machine, the projected video images are interactive with various input/output elements associated with the playfield. The details of this novel pinball machine are disclosed in U.S. Application Ser. No. 09/081,146, filed May 19, 1998, entitled "Amusement Game With Pinball Type Playfield and Virtual Video Images," and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The aforementioned novel pinball machine of the assignee not only has the benefit of providing outstanding player-appeal features through the images projected onto the playfield, but it presents the arcade owner with a new option for altering existing pinball machines. Specifically, the look and feel of the pinball machine can be significantly altered by providing new images to be viewed by the player and possibly a new playfield to accompany the new images. Thus, the arcade owner is now provided with a method by which the same pinball machine frame can be maintained in his arcade, but still constantly introduce many new player-appeal features to sustain his or her clientele.